Channel 4 defends Brass Eye

Channel 4 today defended the use of children in last night's controversial Brass Eye satire about paedophiles, insisting they were all aware of what they were doing.

The station said the children used were actors who were fully chaperoned throughout the making of the show.

And all the photographs of children seen in the programme were pictures of the crew when they were young.

But the station said all the children used were aware they were taking part in a satire about paedophiles.

"All the children who appeared were child actors. In each case they were chaperoned and parents had to give their consent. All the parents were given scripts," said a spokesman for the broadcaster.

"There was no spoofing of the children involved. That was reserved for the celebrities in the public eye who added their voice to something they didn't bother to question."

The scenes involving child actors are the likely cause of many of the complaints to the channel, which has been accused of making light of a serious issue.

In one scene Chris Morris, who played a Crimewatch-style presenter, introduced his "six-year-old son" to a paedophile asking him would he like to have sex with him.

In another scene, parodying American parents who "tart up tots" for beauty pageants, one girl of six or seven years old appeared to be showing off fake breasts to a group of obsessed mothers.

Her fake cleavage was computer-generated and pixillated for authenticity. One doting mother looked on in awe. "They are so cute," she cooed. The child was then lifted aloft by what appeared to be her father who proudly told the group, "They jiggle".

And in a third spoof scene two young teenage girls were interviewed about Morris's hoax US rap artist, J Lb8," the self-styled king of nu-ass music". After proclaiming him as "the coolest", the interviewer interjects with mock horror to say, "But he's a paedophile" to which they retort "So?" and "like we care".

Channel 4 said it was expecting a torrent of criticism from the press but it insisted it was part of the exercise.

Today the Sun called for the revocation of Channel 4's licence and for the sacking off the management at the station who commissioned the show.

"They must never work in TV again," the paper says in its leader. "Last night's show may have raised a laugh in trendy wine bars frequented by TV executives who have all lost touch with the real world."

A spokesman for Channel 4 said: "It is a disturbing subject and difficult to deal with and when you deal with it you get an aggressive response.

"Paedophilia didn't come down from a different galaxy. It is part of society and if we are to understand it we need to look at attitudes towards children and the media - look at boy and girl bands.

"Nobody here is condoning paedophilia. It is abhorrent, but the way to deal with it is not to firebomb cars when the News of the World runs a campaign," he said.